


Demon Days

by paxlux



Category: Supernatural
Genre: M/M
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2011-08-24
Updated: 2011-08-24
Packaged: 2017-10-23 00:48:51
Rating: Mature
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 6,501
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/244420
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/paxlux/pseuds/paxlux
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>Every night until this one has been black and starless.</p>
            </blockquote>





	Demon Days

Every night until this one has been black and starless. Each time they're in the car, it's like falling down a well, and the headlights never find the bottom. It's lulled Sam into a sense of freefall, like anything can happen, like it will, at some point, they will hit the bottom and it won't be pretty, the lights will crack and go out.

He's taken to staring out the window all the time, instead of watching the road or his brother, and he's looking for something to catch himself on, because every night has been black and starless, so when he finally sees the broken-glass edge of moon, he's surprised and he knocks his head into the doorframe.

Dean says Sam, then says Sammy, and it slides in between Sam's ribs, hard like fingers and he mutters something, pretending he's been asleep.

It's been three weeks since Sam can last remember sleeping through the night. Dean thinks it's nightmares or the visions, but Sam keeps telling him no, it's not that, not at all, he tells him while their eggs get cold, while Dean scrapes dried mud off his boots, while the towel is soaking up blood from the long cut on Sam's arm.

Something wakes him, and then he can't sleep again, insomnia worse than any spirit because he can't dig up the bones and burn them, they're his bones and he's not dead, not yet anyway.

He thought it was Dean that was waking him, talking in his sleep, his own nightmares that he never admits to, but Sam doesn't really believe that it's his brother. Dean wakes him in other ways, when they're on the road, when it's time for Sam to take the wheel, when Dean pulls over to stretch his legs, when it's his turn for the shower and he's passed out on the bed, covered in blood.

Sam can sleep, knows he does, but it's like all the nights until tonight, black and dreamless, and sleep is short, sleep is like a blow to the head he doesn't see coming, he closes his eyes, then he opens them, and an hour has passed, or the sun is up, or Dean has a hand on his shoulder and is saying doofus, sasquatch, sparky, tiger, Sammich, c'mon, let's go.

Dean thinks he's going to pass out in the middle of a hunt, some sort of narcolepsy brought on by stress and lack of dreaming, and Sam wonders if it's true, if maybe he'll wake up on his knees with a gun pressed to the vulnerable spot of his neck just under his hair, and he wonders what he'll do then.

He's tracking the moon through the trees, trying to keep sight of it, line of sight is very important and the cut of the moon is the only thing he can see besides Dean and the headlights. A sudden trip of vertigo, and he puts a hand out, smudging the glass of the window, his criminal fingerprints there for all to see.

Then the car isn’t moving and Sam’s opening his eyes and he’s twisted in the seat somehow, so the first thing he sees is Dean. His brother asleep, and they’re on the side of the road with a field next to them and the _churr churr churr_ of a combine off in the distance.

His brother asleep, fallen behind the wheel, and in the past, this is how Sam imagined that Dean would die someday, out on the road where Sam couldn’t reach him and he’d go with his baby, the black-hearted bitch would steal Dean from him and those were the nightmares he used to have in California.

He didn’t dream again, and as he watches Dean, he thinks he knows where the insomnia comes from, how it’s held him so deeply for so long, because he watches Dean and watches him and there’s something in his chest like fear, pressing hard on his sternum, and he waits for the crack.

There are some things he’ll never tell Dean, and he knows there are things Dean will never tell him, that’s how secrets work and even on their best days, when the understanding comes in like radio waves, they still will never tell.

He lets Dean sleep and starts counting in his head, avoiding the way the sunlight makes the chrome on the car flash and instead he listens, counts to the rhythm of the combine threshing somewhere off to his right.

They’re on their way to Montana, and Sam already knows what they’ll find there, the signs all point to a ghost, lost on a road out there, a girl hitchhiker who takes her sweet revenge on passing cars and her laughter goes up to that sky that stretches like God’s eye.

There was a dream once, almost a waking vision Sam had in a motel room, Dean in the car, driving like a hellraiser, his mouth wide with his excitement and he kept saying Sammy, you don’t know what you do to me, and the car revved faster and faster and Dean had one hand on the wheel and one hand on Sam and Sam was holding onto the shotgun door, white-knuckled and adrenaline-fuelled, and they flew around a corner.

And he woke up and didn’t know if he was alive or dead, his brother’s voice in his head saying his name, saying they can’t catch us, Sammy, they can’t catch us, and his heart going so fast because he was scared shitless as Dean smiled and the headlights slid around the corner.

“Hey, you ready to get a move on,” Dean mutters, rubbing at his eyes, and Sam nods.

“Where are we?”

“We’re by a field, Sam.”

“Thanks for that, I’m glad you’re here to point out the obvious.”

“Any time, Sacagawea.”

But they don’t do anything, just sit there, as Dean stares out at the combine, and then he yawns.

They get on the road, heading north, and Dean throws the folded atlas at Sam, and he’s messing with the velcro on the cover, rip rip rip rip, just to annoy Dean, since they’re not on a major road and he’s not going to try to find them on the map yet, as long as they keep the sun to their right for now, they’re headed north.

They don’t talk until Dean says, “Coffee, breakfast, real food?”

“Yeah.”

It’s many more miles before there’s a diner, and Sam’s restless, he can’t help it, jittery and shifting, and he should be listening, maybe he dreamt and it should be coming back to him, maybe something’s about to happen, but he stares out at the yellow stripe that cuts the horizon in two, knee bouncing, and he thinks of the hitchhiking girl the next state over.

He sees a mile marker, wonders about haunting a long stretch of asphalt, between tiny little signs, I died here and no one will forget it because I only remember it and nothing else, so it’d be appropriate, maybe written into their blood, their father the mechanic, and Dean just like him, and the car like the weapon they live by. Dean will want to go out in a blaze of glory, knows he’s probably going to die young and bloody, and Sam’s nightmares might really be the way to go, grinning as they scream around a corner just to see what’s there, where the road ends.

It’s hard to keep track of time, and Sam blinks, and the sun is higher, the landscape petering out into something else entirely, and the road sounds rougher, broken a little, and Dean pushes at him, hey, man, coffee, you’ll be alright after some coffee.

A diner out of nowhere, only because Sam isn’t paying attention, his mind fracturing and rebuilding in slow lazy fashion, he’s too tired to hold it together, and sometimes, the starless dreamless black is the only time in the last three weeks he feels put together.

Dean climbs out and Sam squints at the weak sunshine, thinking that once he gets through breakfast, they’ll be back on the road, and then they’ll be in Montana, and then they’ll be out on the switchback where the girl was hitchhiking, and then there will be another meal, maybe, a shower, and a bed, where he can stare at the ceiling and listen to Dean sleep and tell himself once again why he can’t sleep, why he should stop and sleep, and then at some point, if he goes through the motions enough, he’ll really get to sleep, he’ll get to rest.

Knuckles on the window and he jerks away, but it’s just Dean, scowling at him, c’mon, breakfast, remember?

“Really, man, I don’t know how you’ve made it this far,” Dean says, dodging as Sam opens the door fast, trying to hit his brother in the stomach, “you’re like the living dead. Lucky I’m around to stop you from playing in traffic.”

“If I were the living dead, you could just shoot me,” Sam says, “put me outta my misery,” and it’s a joke, but Dean’s face says it’s a shitty one, and Sam can almost hear him in his head, it’s way too fucking early for that shit.

But his brother doesn’t say anything, just closes the car door and nudges Sam towards the diner. “Get some food in you, some coffee,” he says, “might get to see someone pretty, other’n me,” and their jokes are really bad this morning, so Dean puts his hands in his pockets and Sam watches as he doesn’t wait to see if Sam’ll follow him.

The diner is cracked green tile and formica, green everywhere, Sam can hear it in his head, hear Dean say should be named Green’s, which is kinda screwed up since Dean’s right there, he hasn’t gone anywhere and neither has Sam, unless this insomniac landscape counts, how everything doesn’t seem quite real, and so Sam decides the diner is called Green’s.

No booths, just tables and even with chairs, their knees knock together and Dean rolls his eyes while Sam looks at the slick menu the waitress gives them, thinking that there should be green eggs and ham, Sam I am, and he smirks, laughter under his breath and Dean says, “I always knew you weren’t right in the head. Musta been that time I dropped you.”

“Think I landed on my ass,” Sam points out.

“Like I said, you aren’t right in the head,” Dean says.

“Poet and didn’t know it.”

“All those years listening to good music.”

The pictures on the menu are making Sam queasy so he closes his eyes and chooses that way, finger weaving in a figure-eight he can see in his head, then stop.

When he looks up, Dean’s got his head tilted with that _what the fuck is wrong with you_ expression on his face, exasperation and something else Sam has never been able to name, so he grins all the same at his brother and Dean rolls his eyes again.

“Like I said.”

“Did you ever stop to think that maybe you’re the one who isn’t right in the head?” Sam asks, tapping his temple. “Too many concussions, Dean, can’t be good.”

Dean shrugs, rueful smile as he says, “Knocked some sense into me. Maybe you didn’t have any sense to begin with.”

“Don’t sound so hopeful.”

There’s a cup of coffee in front of him and Dean across from him and when the waitress comes back, Sam doesn’t remember what he picked, says I’ll have what he’s having, and as the waitress smiles, walks away, Dean isn’t watching her, he’s watching Sam, smirking around his coffee with dark circles under his eyes.

“Haven’t you been sleeping?” Sam says. “You look like shit.”

“You’re one to talk. I know _you_ aren’t sleeping.”

And it’s like a kick to the head, Sam knows, his brother isn’t sleeping because Sam isn’t, and he didn’t mean to drag Dean into this, there are things he’ll never tell Dean and how does he know.

“So maybe we should stop.”

“Drink up,” Dean says, sliding his hand across the table to push at Sam’s mug.

“We should stop, Dean.”

“Fine, so stop looking funny. Not sure that’ll ever happen.”

Sam sighs and like a summons, the waitress appears with the food and he’s not hungry, just an absent ache in his belly, but he’s not sure eating is even worth it at this stage. He picks up his fork anyway.

They eat and Dean stares out at the scattered cars in the parking lot and Sam stares at his plate, feeling guilty because his brother isn’t sleeping either, is he keeping him up at night, this insomnia is his, not Dean’s, his alone, with how everything flares at the edges when he looks around and sounds reach him like bullets underwater and Dean seems so far away.

He wonders if the hitchhiking girl ever had insomnia, maybe that’s why she was hitchhiking, trying to get away or running to something or it was easier to travel instead of sleeping.

Fingers on the collar of his jacket, tugging slightly and Dean says, “You ready? Need to piss, do it now.”

“You’re the one who has to stop every five minutes,” Sam says, shrugging him off, but instead, Dean shoves his hand against Sam’s face, “Yeah, right, you’re the fountain. You gotta piss like a racehorse all the time.”

Sam grins as he pushes back from the table, chair hitting Dean in the side as he stands. “Built like one too.”

“A fountain? You want me to throw change at you? ‘Cause you ain’t built like a racehorse, dude, I remember you in diapers.”

He pays, muttering under his breath, and Sam says, “Yeah, okay, bathroom.”

“Go freshen up, princess.”

“I’m surprised you don’t wanna go make kissy faces at yourself in the mirror.”

“Blow me.”

Flipping him off, Sam heads to the bathroom and decides he’ll avoid the mirror, because he’s seen Dean who isn’t sleeping because Sam isn’t, so Sam probably looks worse, and mirrors tell a truth Sam has never liked.

The bathroom’s green too, he can’t seem to win.

When he gets back outside, Dean’s leaning against the car, poking at something in his palm, but as Sam walks up, he grins, “They were melting.”

M&Ms, the colors starting to stain Dean’s skin and he’s all candy-smashed happiness in front of Sam and it’s miraculous, the only word for it since Sam hasn’t been able to sleep for three weeks.

“Always knew you weren’t right in the head,” he says, grinning back, and Dean scowls, “Melting, Sam, they were _melting_ , it’s a _crime_.”

“You should know, criminal like you.”

“You got a record too, Dillinger.”

“Thanks to you, Pretty Boy Floyd.”

“No need to thank me. But I wouldn’t say ‘pretty’, dude, maybe ‘blindingly handsome,’” Dean says before he licks the rest of the candy shells off his palm and Sam laughs, the day bending sharp around them like something that’ll never break, then Dean’s there, right there, up close, and Sam thinks again, how does he know.

Dean kisses him, chocolate and coffee and sleeplessness.

And then time skips or Dean moves away fast, because Sam doesn’t know what happened, except that Dean’s staring up at him, saying holy shit, _fuck_ , in that desperate voice Sam hears usually accompanied by gunfire, and his brother pushes him away, skimming around the hot black of the car.

“C’mon, Sam, let’s go. Road’s a-callin’.”

“Montana,” Sam says, and he knows Dean just kissed him, mouth to his in dangerous fashion, and all Sam can say is the name of a state.

Safe behind the windshield, Dean’s glaring at the dashboard, and as Sam climbs in, shotgun always and forever, he thinks he might’ve done something wrong, he wasn’t fast enough, wasn’t awake enough, wasn’t paying attention, because he could’ve done what he wanted, mouth to Dean’s in reciprocal easy danger.

“Dean.”

“You know where we’re heading?” Dean says, and he doesn’t wait for an answer, gooses the gas and they take off, back on the road, the yellow line leading them to their reward or their doom, and Sam feels split down the middle.

“Dean, I.”

“Shut up, Sammy.”

The world opens up in front of them, like dropped eggs, smashed and spilling, and Sam’s insomnia has infected Dean, made everything surreal for him too, so much so that he’s seen those dreams Sam can’t remember now, the overheated fever dreams he’s had since he can remember, how Sam loves his brother and how it sits in him, a hairline fracture waiting to snap.

He keeps his hands on his knees and he stares out the window and one song bleeds into another bleeds into another bleeds into another.

Mile markers blip by, and Dean’s driving so calm, as if he’s been condemned and there’s no appeal, no reprieve and Sam wants to tell him _try again_ , but it’ll take more than two words and Dean won’t listen to him, he’ll hear everything Sam doesn’t mean and take it to heart, like holy ghost gospel.

“Dean. Stop.”

“We’ll be there in a few hours, man, just go to sleep.”

“No,” Sam says. “Pull over. Right there.”

But all he does is smudge the window as he points because Dean keeps driving, staring out at the sky, says sleep, go to sleep.

There are things his brother will never tell him and this might be one of them, so close, a light right before a blackout, so Sam can’t sleep, he can’t.

Every handful of miles, he’ll say his brother’s name and from behind the wheel out of Sam’s sight, Dean’ll tell him to sleep.

He doesn’t know how to reach Dean, how to tell him it’s going to be all right, and he doesn’t want to say anything in the car, they might wreck, Dean might jerk the wheel and they’ll be off the road, in the ditch, spinning like a meteorite and it’ll be a self-fulfilling prophecy, what Sam deserves in his exhaustion, because he didn’t kiss Dean back.

So they ride along, and the one time Sam glances over, Dean’s got his lip in his teeth, hand to his forehead as if he’s succumbing to some unnameable pain and Sam reaches out, gets a hand on Dean.

Dean flinches.

They’re quiet for miles.

Montana looks the same as everything else, or it could be Sam, how he’s stopped really seeing anything, all a blur since Dean’s tearing himself up, not the way Sam does, like little pieces of paper, but long bloody strips, and Sam says, “Dean, c’mon, man.”

“Sam, you have no idea.”

“I will if you tell me.” It’s a weak argument, one he’s used for years, a throwback to anytime he knew Dean was keeping something from him, and it doesn’t always work. Then he hears it again, over the roar of the engine in the dream, Sammy, you have no idea what you do to me, and his heart tripletime in his chest.

The daylight is failing, the day giving up and Sam doesn’t blame it one bit, though he has to try again, isn’t going to give up on this silent stone version of his brother.

Dean doesn’t say anything until they get to town. In the motel parking lot, lit slick with the neon of the sign, the puddles of old rain in potholes, he shakes his head, says no, Sam, no, and he gets out of the car without an answer.

But Sam’s tired, and he’s tired of this, and he’s been tired of this for miles and hours now, he won’t wait, so he stumbles his way after Dean and traps him against the door.

“You’re going to tell me,” he says, hand in a fist by Dean’s head.

And Dean does, kisses him again, and now Sam’s ready, he kisses back, but then Dean’s shaking and he’s saying something, Sam, you have no idea, none at all.

"So c’mon, Dean, tell me, just tell me," Sam says, kissing him back, mouth on his brother’s, maybe they’re asleep or maybe they’re dead, as Sam saw in his screaming dreams so many years ago, crumpled bloody around smoking metal with glass in their hair, because when they stop to catch their breath, Dean is watching him, waiting, eyes wide, ready for whatever blow Sam will land.

He feels like a fiend, so he grins like one and Dean leans back, his head and Sam’s knuckles thudding on the door.

“This is because we can’t sleep,” Sam says.

Dean shakes his head, then nods. “Yeah, maybe.”

“I don’t buy it.”

“I’m not selling it,” Dean says, and Sam laughs a little against his jaw, “Finders keepers then.”

“Sam.”

There it is, Dean said his name, so Sam kisses him again and they get the door open, stumble and break apart, but Dean’s still got his palm wrapped hot around Sam’s neck and he mumbles, c’mon, you need to sleep, c’mere, and Sam pulls on him, hears a seam somewhere tear, hears Dean kick the door closed, then they’re on a bed and he sees the ceiling, then Dean’s eyes, lit slick like the neon outside.

He falls asleep with Dean’s hand shoved under his shirt, fingers lining his ribcage.

It’s another time skip, another cruel joke because when Sam opens his eyes again, it’s only been two hours, three if he rounds up, and he’s alone on the bed, curled like he’s protecting himself. No dreams, yet again, but he does remember kissing Dean, remembers Dean shaking and burning against him.

A noise, Dean clearing his throat, and he’s over at the table, looking pale under bruises, those aren’t bruises, just the dark circles and shadows, and Sam thinks that sleeplessness does that, or it’s possible he did it, has pulled something from Dean while he’s not sleeping because Sam isn’t, like a vicious magic trick, selfish sleight of hand while Dean is distracted with this insomnia that belongs to Sam.

Dean says, “You up?” and Sam nods, pushing his hair out of his eyes, “Yeah, think so.”

“You want some food before we go out after this chick?”

“Dean.”

Sitting up, Sam can see Dean better, his lines kind of blurry, and Dean’s holding up a hand.

“Later. After.”

“After this, you mean.”

“Yes, Sam, fuck, _after_ this.” He sighs, sliding a piece of paper back and forth under the press of his finger. “Let’s get this outta the way first.”

Sam thinks, you said later and I know what that means, later means later means much later means possibly never, but he does know that out on this switchback where the girl walks weaving down the middle of the road, they’ll be distracted, shooting wildly and yelling each other’s names, because they have to finish the hunt first, all bullets to the heart will come later when they can really focus on aiming.

“Okay, ghost put to rest first.”

Dean presses too hard and the paper shoots out and he puts two fingers in his mouth, fucking paper cuts, he’s grumbling and Sam feels like he’s hyperaware, can feel the sting in his own fingertips as Dean stands, moving, one hand on the knob, let’s go, sasquatch.

Nodding at nothing, Sam clambers off the bed, adjusts his clothes, and he hates sleeping in his clothes, but it’s one of those lesser evils, something he’s used to and can still say he hates. The paper says Jane Doe, says cremation at the morgue, says the number of the mile marker out on the road where the girl stared up at the sky and drowned in her own blood.

He’s always had an overactive imagination.

Whatever happens, Sam hopes it happens quick, that he and Dean won’t feel the knife, the bullet, the car slamming into the ground. Kissing Dean happened slow, like the world in rewind.

The car doesn’t seem to notice anything wrong, anything new and different, and Sam’s surprised they haven’t shorted any of her circuits, they could jumpstart her battery just from what’s strung between them, left over for _after this_ , and he does what’s becoming habit, he stares out the window as Dean drives and thinks that if Dean keeps it up, if he wants to put his hands on Sam again, then fuck sleep, Sam’ll sleep when he’s dead, and he won’t have to dream.

Mile markers blip by, déjà vu all over again, and Sam’s breath on the window makes them disappear until the car stops, then they’re halfway between nowhere and nothing, and the girl must’ve been lost or trying to get lost or didn’t give a damn either way.

“Cremated,” Sam says, “so whaddya think—“

“I dunno, Sam, guess we’ll know it when.” Curving forward around the wheel, Dean sighs and points.

A roadside cross, stark and stuck in the headlights.

There’s no wind, no sound of any kind as they get out of the car to investigate and Sam finds himself closing the distance between him and Dean, as if something bad’s coming and his body already knows it.

The ground is littered with candles, but they’ve all gone out, the glass votives sit cold and fragile.   Ribbons and dried flowers on brittle stalks, a single note card that says I’m sorry, and Dean says, “Oh hell.”

Sam agrees, hands in his pockets, a little white cross, battered by the country out here, and this tiny corner is hell for the girl, and just another spot where a car went off the road.

And as Dean sets foot on the tar gravel, she appears, skittering out of the darkness around the headlights, her hair in messy pigtails and her jeans torn at the knees and the night is black, cold and endless.

No more than fifteen, and she isn’t crying like some spirits they meet, she’s furious, the air freezing around her under the open sky, and Sam remembers being that angry, remembers thinking he would set things on fire with his anger alone.

She screams, I just wanted to _run_ , she screams, You were always _watching_ me. Blurred like a demon and just as fast, she puts her hands on Dean and shoves with another scream and everything is dead as he flies back, until he hits the car, square on the hood, his head hitting the chrome and he skids down to the asphalt.

And Sam remembers being that angry. He doesn’t feel sorry when he shoots her in the face.

She dissolves, a shriek in her throat, and Sam’s saying his brother’s name, but Dean doesn’t move, eyes closed, an arm out like he can’t take it anymore.

Sam gets the kerosene, grabs the matches, and he’s talking the whole time, Dean, wake up, wake up, c’mon, you’re not gonna be taken out by a girl and your own car, dude, _c’mon_ , then before he knows it, Sam’s thrown a lit matchbook at the little white cross, and she’s glaring at him, laughing like she’d rather being crying, her hands up as if to say _that’s all there is?_

He watches, keeps the burning candles, the flickering glass, the dead flowers and smell of burning wood between them, and as the permanent ink catches fire, I’m sorry, he sees the plastic purple barrette, clipped to a ribbon, a shooting star waiting for its turn.

Then five steps, Sam’s back at the car, carefully gathering up his brother where he’s fallen all askew, checking for breaks and holding a hand to the cut on Dean’s forehead, blood trickling between his fingers, saying Dean, you gotta come back to me, man, as the fire burns down on the side of the road.

She vanishes laughing and it sounds like she says _run_.

Sam should remember driving, he should remember getting Dean into the front seat, head in his lap so he can keep his palm on the cut, driving back to the motel, it shouldn’t be something he does on autopilot, it shouldn’t be a habit, but he blinks and he’s pulling Dean out of the car and into the room. He shouldn’t be collapsing next to Dean on the bed and breathing like he’s broken something himself.

He can’t sleep now and he can’t get Dean to wake up and then Dean says they can’t catch us, and fuck, when this is all over, Sam’s going to tell him about how the car almost killed him by doing nothing but sitting there, isn’t that fucking hilarious, always thought we’d die at speed.

When you can’t sleep, it’s easier to just stay full awful-eyed awake and Sam taps his fingers on Dean’s cheek, says, “Dean Dean Dean,” every few minutes, and this is a repeat of hours ago, Dean telling him to sleep, and then Sam’s saying to the motel room, “I can’t, I can’t, you have no idea what you do to me, I _can’t._ ”

Panic is setting in, broken tectonic plates shifting inside Sam, and he feels taken over and abandoned, hollowed out and possessed, this bloody hand is not his own. There’s a hospital in this town, there has to be, but this isn’t exactly a bar fight gone south. He’d show up in the bright sterile lights, jittering like a cold turkey junkie with his brother unconscious, bleeding all over them both and that’d be the end.

“My head’s _killing_ me,” Dean says and Sam says, “Fuck, it can get in line then. I’m gonna kill you first.”

Dean’s trying to sit up and Sam’s holding him down and it’d be a fight there and then, but Dean gives up early under Sam’s palms, says, “Helluva right hook there, Sammy.”

“You think I did this.”

“Hey, I taught you everything I. Everything you know,” Dean retorts and his eyes glitter oddly, too wide like his gaze is splintered, so Sam says, “Where are we.”

“An ugly motel room. Though I thought it had brown wallpaper. With those ugly French flower thingies.”

Sam almost laughs because maybe this is another waking vision, maybe the insomnia’s finally caught up to him, he says, “Fleur-de-lis.”

“Yeah, I didn’t teach you that. It took almost a month to teach you to drive, but. Hell if I know where you got ‘fleur-de-lis.’”

He’s right. The wallpaper should be peeling in the corners, hideous beige with fine gold lines and the fleur-de-lis pattern, as if the forty-dollar-a-night motel could be classy if it only tried hard enough.

But that was two days and two states ago.

“We get in a bar fight? Just my luck you hit me instead of the other guy,” Dean says, trying for conversational, but it’s too slurred and Sam has to busy himself, getting painkillers and water and a towel to clean the cut.

“Yeah, you’re a big target, Dean, pretty hard to miss,” he says, fingers poking gently at his brother’s jaw to get him to open his mouth, take the damn pills, fucker.

Dean does as Sam silently wills him to, gets the pills on his tongue and scowls at the bitter powder taste, Sam knows it well, always makes his spine tighten, and Dean takes a sip, swallows big for effect and says, “You can’t hit the broadside of a barn.”

“You taught me everything I know.”

“Not punching me in a fight with the other guys is the first rule.”

Sam closes his eyes and knows he won’t sleep for the next three days, four possibly, however long they’re here before Dean can stop blinking so fast against the pain. It’s all wrong, it’s all gone wrong, and why should it go right, it makes perfect sense in this cracked world where Sam can’t even get a decent night’s sleep.

“What’s the last thing you remember.”

“You haven’t been sleeping,” Dean says, rolling his shoulders. “And we watched some show about Pearl Harbor.”

Three in the morning, black and white pictures of bombers and sinking ships, enormous fireballs, and FDR talking about yesterday, the date which will live in infamy, and their own notoriety is gone, two days ago Dean can’t remember.

Dean eating M&Ms at the diner and grinning under that impossible arch of sky before kissing his brother.

The long stretch of the drive to this out-of-the-way town to find the ghost trapped at her own mile marker and Sam trapped in the shotgun seat without a single thing to say, stolen by the grim-faced man behind the wheel.

The chipped faded red paint of the motel room door when Sam got Dean to kiss him again, and again, and again, and _after this_ has become never, exactly like Sam predicted, truer words were never spoken, and at this moment, Dean’s grinning at him, slow and easy, as the drugs kick in and he says it’s all right, Sammy, knocked some sense into me.

Sam won’t let him sleep, neither of them is allowed to sleep, so he fetches candy from the vending machine and after Dean says _fuck_ , I’m thirsty, so thirsty, Sam, he jogs to the convenience store on the corner and comes back with coffee and cokes and enough chips to get them through a night of infomercials, maybe two if they ration.

They aren’t driving anywhere, Sam is stuck on the memory of having Dean’s head on his thigh, trying to hold the blood back, hold it in, his brother unconscious and pale, like bad times before, and he’s not sure he trusts himself in the car right now, with the gleam everything has and how his vision breaks up at the edges and when he does let Dean sleep, he’s out so fast and so deep, Sam can’t breathe.

He keeps an arm across Dean’s chest to feel it rise and fall, and breathes with him until he sees diamonds and almost passes out.

It’s hard to keep track of time and the sun rises and sets and Sam leaves the television on, sits on the floor against the bathroom door when Dean showers, leaves the door open when he showers, listening as Dean wanders around the room, muttering under his breath, dude, _laundry_ , all I have left is that ratty pair of boxers and I have _standards_.

He buys a newspaper, tells Dean what day it is, that they’re in Montana, nah, just passing through, we’ll get a hunt in a day or two, and we’ll leave in the morning, so stop your bitching.

Because Dean’s eyes have cleared and except for the occasional headache, he’s the same brother Sam’s always had, saying, “Y’know, I bet if you cut your hair, I wouldn’t recognize you,” and if the painkillers didn’t knock him out at night, he’d be awake with Sam, insomniac by proxy.

But as they’re gassing up to leave, Sam’s leaning against the car, resting his head on the metal, home again home again jiggidy jig, and Dean elbows him sharp and hard in the side, “Look, Sammy, breakfast of champions.”

20 oz. Dr. Pepper and a bag of M&Ms and he’s grinning to beat the band, and Sam swallows, loud with a click because he didn’t tell Dean about that, didn’t tell him how Dean knew, how he knew what to do, how he knew the right way to kiss Sam.

He doesn’t know if Dean will want it again, if maybe it’s because he couldn’t sleep, nothing ever real when you’re awake for too long, all things are possible and won’t hurt as much, and sleep will wash it all away.

He can’t ask, so he nods, says, “No wonder you’re so short. Stunted your growth,” and Dean scowls, “I suppose I fed you too much pb&j,” and no, Sam can’t ask him now.

They get in the car and start heading east and Sam hears it in his head again, yes, Sam, fuck, after this, and there is no after this, after what, after Dean getting slammed against the car and losing two days to something that took three seconds.

“Sam.”

“Yeah.”

“Top five monster movies.”

Sam laughs under his breath, but doesn’t turn from the window. He smudges the world outside with his fingers and says, “That one time Dad killed a wendigo and it almost exploded. That time you tried to shoot the werewolf in that river and you slipped on the rocks. Almost drowned.”

“Dammit, Sam, think you’re so funny—“

“That time you were stalked by that girl with the pink streak in her hair.”

“I just said hi to her, bein’ neighborly.”

“You bought her three rounds and told her her tits looked fantastic in that top.”

Dean shrugs uncomfortably, the cut on his forehead angry red and Sam stares at it before pushing his hair back.

“That time I shot that harpy.”

“That was awesome. Nothing like that wendigo, it really exploded.”

“All those feathers everywhere,” Sam says and Dean laughs and no, Sam can’t ask him. He can’t, you have no idea what you do to me.

They can’t catch us.

“Four, that’s only four,” Dean says, waggling his fingers.

“Um, dunno, it’s a toss-up. So many of your mistakes to choose from.”

His brother flips him off, easy as breathing, and Sam says, “Fine, what about you.”

And they’re back on the road, bullshitting and bitching and a day might pass when Sam blinks, and eventually he’ll get some sleep.

After this. Maybe he’ll sleep.

Maybe he’ll watch Dean’s mouth as he talks and Dean’ll say you aren’t sleeping, you look like shit, and Sam’ll say have you looked in a mirror lately, and when Dean grins, he’ll want to ask, he’ll want to say hey, don’t you remember, you kissed me and I kissed you back and we could have everything, Dean, everything. Don’t you remember.

Maybe he’ll sleep enough to notice the little things, Dean handing him the creamer and turning down the music and saying rise and shine, sleeping beauty.

Dean knew then, and maybe he’ll know now, because Sam remembers thinking, how does he know.

One day in the car, he closes his eyes, and when he opens them, it’s six hours later. They pass a hitchhiker out by another forgotten mile marker and Sam doesn’t look back, watches Dean’s gaze flick to the rearview as they go by, and Sam bites his tongue.

He’ll wait, he waits to see if Dean will do it again, put his mouth to Sam's again, live wire to light them up, he waits because Dean's hands skim closer to him now, Dean's eyes on him like Sam's the only thing in focus, he waits because one thing he's learned after all the time spent in the car blowing past speed limit signs, after all the towns they've been through, one thing he's learned is that you can never go back.


End file.
